Automated and semi-automated machines have been employed for processing documents such as bulk mail. Due to the large quantity of mail received by many companies, there has long been a need for efficient sorting of incoming mail. Document sorting has become particularly important in the area of remittance processing.
Various companies routinely receive thousands of payment envelopes and other types of mail on a daily basis. Frequently, the envelopes received in the incoming mail have varying characteristics. For instance, the height, length and thickness of the envelopes may vary. In addition, the opacity of the envelopes may vary significantly due to the differences between standard envelopes and privacy envelopes commonly used for financial documents.
Although the known system provide for the efficient removal of the mail, it is desirable to provide an improved system that can increase the efficiency of processing the incoming mail. In accordance with the present invention, an apparatus and method are provided for processing mail that can accommodate a batch of mail containing envelopes having different characteristics.